We told you back in August that Allen Iverson was expected to officially announce his retirement from basketball — and even then it wasn’t news. He hadn’t set foot on an NBA court since 2010 and it had been years before that since he made a big impact in the league. His time had come.

Well he’s going to make it official during the first week of the NBA, tweets Chris Broussard of ESPN.

Sources: Allen Iverson will officially announce his NBA retirement at the Sixers' Home opener vs Miami on Oct 30

Iverson is a future Hall of Famer — an 11-time All-Star who averaged 26.7 points, 6.2 assists and 2.2 steals a game in his 13-year career. More than that, his fearless attacking style and ability to finish among the trees in the NBA made him maybe the most entertaining player of his generation. Off the court Iverson led the charge to bring a hip-hop culture, a real street look to the game. Young African-Americans related to him in a way they did not with other stars. He changed the game.

@isujames – His comment had nothing to do with stereotypes, and Kurt’s comment is the truth for a lot of kids that penciled in AI on their shoes or wore his stuff back in the 90’s. The mag SLAM made the exact same observation about AI.

AI did change the game, period. He changed the way the game looked. He changed the speed of the game with that wicked crossover. He changed the equation because he was a scoring PG- with no one to pass it to sometimes.

He was of average height but could play and score at will in the NBA. In the paint. Against huge centers of forwards. AI was a finisher.

Look, Wade, Rose, Westbrook, Uncle Drew- all of them have studied AI. My son is 15 years old and he wanted to learn how to finish in the paint from the wing. So he goes to Youtube. Who does he want to see? AI! He even looked and saw that Kyrie Irving does his EXACT MOVES! Iverson was the innovator.

So I think that you are correct, but it’s not just African-American youth. If you wanted to learn how to properly crossover and finish, you studied AI. Ask Jeremy Lin. Ask any PG or other Wing player that loves to finish.

One of my favorite players of all time. I don’t care much for “best pound-for-pound” lists or “best little man” lists – AI was flat out one of the greatest of all time, period. First ballot hall of famer. And as Mr. Helin alluded to, he represented something more than just basketball – he represented a culture. My hip-hop culture. We owe a lot to Iverson for that actually.

And after Iverson came along other NBA players started to copy his steeze a little and get their own tattoos, etc – do their fake street bit (you know who I’m talking about). But AI was authentic – maybe too authentic for his own good.

The only other b-ball player who inspired me on the court more than Iverson was Jordan – and that’s saying a ton. And I know there are millions of people like me out there who would say the same thing (I believe LeBron said something similar recently). You can’t really give higher praise than that to an NBA player.